Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films

Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety
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Format:  DVD
item number:  322JH
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DVD Details

  • Rated: Not Rated
  • Run Time: 1 hours, 31 minutes
  • Video: Black & White / Color
  • Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
  • Released: October 28, 2003
  • Originally Released: 2003
  • Label: Kino Video

Performers, Cast and Crew:

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Entertainment Reviews:

Fresh75%

TOMATOMETER
Total Count: 12

Upright64%

AUDIENCE SCORE
User Ratings: 256
Rating: 3/5 -- Someday, perhaps, someone will make a documentary of Volvo commercials and Consumers Union test-drive videos, but I doubt it will be as unnerving -- or as much fun -- as Hell's Highway.
New York Times
Jun 28, 2003
Rating: 3/5 -- Oddly nostalgic. Full Review
Boxoffice Magazine
Jun 28, 2003
Rating: 3/5 -- Ephemeral films expert Rick Prelinger is on hand to situate the films in a larger cultural context but the clips speak louder than any interview, evoking a pre-seatbelt era of highway carnage and celluloid tough love.
TV Guide
Jun 28, 2003
...Oddly nostalgic...
Box Office
Sep 1, 2003
Rating: C -- Winds up functioning no differently than the disgraceful, despicable films it scrutinizes. Full Review
Lessons of Darkness
May 4, 2005
The real highlights in Hell's Highway are the driver's ed scare films themselves, and [director] Wood has presented a generous sampling of often flabbergasting clips.
PopMatters
Oct 17, 2003
Rating: A -- This not-for-the -squeamish documentary will definitely make you think twice about not buckling up. Full Review
E! Online
Jun 28, 2003

Product Description:

In 1960, accountant Richard Wayman and photographer Phyllis Vaughn started the Cleveland-based Highway Safety Foundation after amassing a sizeable collection of photos taken at auto crash sites and shooting an educational film, SIGNAL 30, which incorporated crash site footage. The Foundation's film production wing, Safety Enterprises, went on to produce a number of now-legendary auto safety films (including WHEELS OF TRAGEDY and MECHANIZED DEATH) incorporating extremely grisly real-life imagery, which were shown to unsuspecting high school students across the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Bret Miller's documentary takes a probing look into the strange story of the people who made these bizarre and haunting films. He includes interviews with genre experts such as educational film archivist Richard Prelinger and Something Weird Video's Mike Vraney, as well as Earle Deems and John Domer--two of the men who worked on these compelling curiosities. While the subject matter is sensationalistic by nature, Miller's approach is reverent, and, though the films have passed on into the land of pop cultural legend, one is never doubtful that those who made the films did so out of a well-intentioned sense of duty and purpose.

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Product Info

  • Sales Rank: 1,989
  • UPC: 738329031220
  • Shipping Weight: 0.29/lbs (approx)
  • International Shipping: 1 item

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